Much like the constant stream of Hallmark Christmas movies that crowd your television schedule every winter, Auburn football has seen basically the same plot over the past few seasons in SEC play.
The Tigers play well —good enough to win —but somehow walk off the field with another disappointing, mind-blowing loss that bewilders the brains of every fan, player and coach involved with the program.
At some point, the twist at the end has to change, or a new formula needs to be brought in.
That brings us to Saturday night in Jordan-Hare Stadium. Hugh Freeze and the Tigers have another opportunity to get a quality win against a ranked conference team. Sure, Missouri is an excellent team, but after chances against Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Georgia went unfulfilled, this is a make-or-break game for Freeze and his staff.
The third-year head coach even admits that the results thus far have been mystifying.
"We just find ways to put ourselves in position to lose games and not finding ways to win games," Freeze said on Monday.
(Full disclosure, as always: Freeze and I are close friends.)
You could excuse the close calls in Freeze's first season, as he took over a roster bereft of SEC-level talent. And the perplexing losses in 2024 could have been blamed on injuries on special teams and other factors.
But now, in the third year, it falls on Freeze and his staff to get the job done. No longer is the talent gap a significant disadvantage, nor is the hope that getting his staff in place — his guys, if you will — will make a difference. And the difficult thing is that it's the offense —something that Freeze takes pride in and on which he has earned his coaching credibility —to blame.
That's the biggest mystery surrounding Auburn football right now, and at times in the first half against Georgia, it looked like the Tigers were finally on track. But, like in almost every loss in the two-plus seasons Freeze has been at Auburn, execution and production declined, and another team and coach celebrated as the Tigers headed to the locker room with even more questions than answers.
If Saturday night proves to be another example of this, it could get ugly, even uglier than all the rumors and gossip going on in and around the Plains. Fans are disappointed, concerned that the program isn't progressing. Players are getting frustrated, knowing that some of these games should have turned out differently.
No one is more upset than Freeze, I can promise that. He takes losing hard, and in his third season of puzzling and confounding defeats, it has likely taken a toll.
Finishing his opening statement on Monday, Freeze talked about getting his players to buy into the fact that it will get better.
"It’s really hard to understand and put your finger on it, but that’s what we have to do as coaches, is to figure out how to help our kids believe," he said.
Freeze needs to look inside himself to believe as well.